In general, a ceiling guided vehicle of the above-described article transport facility is configured to be caused to travel by a power-driven travel driving portion, and also configured to include a control portion for controlling the operation of the ceiling guided vehicle. If the power supply portion or the control portion in such a ceiling guided vehicle has failed and the ceiling guided vehicle can no longer travel, there may be a situation where another ceiling guided vehicle can no longer travel in an area of the traveling rail in which the failed ceiling guided vehicle is stopped, resulting in a reduction in the article transport ability of the facility.
Therefore, for example, JP 4701744 discloses a technique by which, in the event of failure of the power supply portion or the control portion of a ceiling guided vehicle, an auxiliary unit including an external power supply portion and an external control portion is attached to the ceiling guided vehicle so as to replace the failed power supply portion or control portion with the external power supply portion or the external control portion of the auxiliary unit, thereby causing the failed ceiling guided vehicle to travel.